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A couple weeks back I wrote a post in the benefits of writing action plans to implement small behavior changes to bring about long term results.  Frankly, I think that this is the best way to overcome stumbling blocks in getting started with an exercise or nutrition program for the beginner and for reaching new levels of achievement for advanced trainees.

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As a result of that post, I’ve had a few questions and I figured that today would be as good a day as any to one of them.

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Question: If I successfully implemented a behavior last week, do I have to change it or increase it this week?

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Answer: Definitely not.  If last week you decided you were going to exercise 3 times for 30 minutes and you achieved that goal, there is no reason to expect that this week you should attempt to do 4 days per week or increase the time to 45 minutes.  However, the aim of an action plan is to make regular small steps forward in ANY behavior the leads you towards your goal.  So this week you could very well maintain your previous exercise goal and address another behavior instead.

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For example, if your long term goal is weight loss and last week you began exercising as was discussed above, perhaps this week you can begin to address another simple habit like sleep as this can also effect weight management.  If you regularly go to bed late and get up early for work you might set an action plan to go to bed by 9:30 at least one night this week and build on that in later action plans.

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Ultimately, the when thinking about action planning it helps to take a look at what the ideal situation would look like for you to achieve your goal.  For fat loss you’d likely be exercising a few times per week, lifting weights, eating less junk food, maintaining a moderate calorie deficit, eating plenty of veggies and fruit, consuming adequate protein, drinking mostly water and few calorie containing beverages, sleeping 7-8 hours per night, and so on.  Doing all that at once is easily a recipe for failure (which is why most people that try this do not actually succeed in the long term), but breaking it down into very small managable actions will make it possible to implement this over a very long time line and make it more likely that you’ll be able to maintain it.

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So you select the easiest possible remaining behavior that needs to be changed and start working on it in the simplest possible way for you whether it be only one meal per week or one day per week.  Over time, new habits will form and the results will come.  They key is patience and consistency.  If you can accept that it will take time, the wait will pay off and you’ll eventually leave all those trying more severe programs in the dust as they struggle to maintain their new habits and eventually regain the weight they lost.

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And for those who are more advanced, the same thing appliles.  You may have already implemented behaviors that have set you on the path to your goals.  The key now is to identify which ones still lie between you and your intended outcome, pick the easiest one to change…and get after it.

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In the end, it is nice to read this stuff, but unless you’re actually doing it, you might as well have not wasted your time.   What is your action plan this week?  If I get enough people sharing theirs I’ll share my own next week.

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PS: If this post has helped you or you think it might be helpful to someone you know, please don’t hesitate to share it.

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Facebook Arguments - This is How I Roll

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So Sunday I sent out an email to my newsletter subscribers and, as I usually do at the bottom, I invited my subscribers to join me on Facebook to connect and share in the discussions on my wall.  More specifically, this time I mentioned that my Facebook is indeed the place to be to enjoy the rants, arguments, and tirades that take place on my statuses from time to time.

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Interestingly, despite having invited people to add me many times before, it seems that you are all more excited to chat it up if you think there is going to be disagreement and rage filled rants.  In short, ya’ll are sick!    Of course, this is good news because I am also one for such discussions.  For the rest of you who have yet to connect and participate in said discussions (shame on you), please feel free to add me HERE.  I know you’re just as sick as the rest of us.

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While you’re at it, don’t forget to follow me on Twitter and subscribe on YouTube as well.

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Down to Business

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Okay…enough chatter.  Time to get to work.

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Last week I wrote a little bit about the state of the research on refeeds, but I was very careful not to say that they don’t work because the truth of the matter is that just because there isn’t any research to help us determine one way or the other in well designed weight loss studies in humans.  As you could probably tell from the tone of my post, I’m not totally convinced at this point and I don’t often use structured refeeds with my clients.

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That said, I know that there are many very smart folks who do use refeeds with their clients and I think it is only fair to consider their opinions as well.  I feel that many fitness professionals – myself included - can sometimes become a little too dogmatic about their own methods so I wanted to ask my good friend Erik Ledin (who has worked with many high level bodybuilding, fitness, and physique competitors) to share his perspective on how to use refeeds and when they are most effective.

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*Note – To be clear here, we’re talking about structured higher calorie and higher carb meals.  Refeeds are not the typical “cheat meal” where a bodybuilder will go out to a restaurant and kill a steak, a pizza, and a plate of pasta washed down with a couple Cokes.*

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Here’s what I asked Erik

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“At what point do you feel refeeds become important? Do people at any percentage of body fat benefit from them? In other words, are they valuable for everyone who is trying to lose fat?”

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Erik’s response

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“You could really draw an answer out but just to keep it short, when progress stalls, or when a person is lean.
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Fatter people don’t need refeeds since body fat is protective to the regulatory hormones; it’s when someone gets lean and is further and further away from their metabolic set point that things tend to get all jacked up.
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People can argue this all they want, but the reality of actual PEOPLE going through this is hard to ignore.
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I don’t know what body fat percentage that would be as I could bet it would differ from person to person again based on how far they’ve come from where their bodies want to naturally gravitate towards. Those who have come from further probably will benefit sooner and vice versa.
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So I’ll look at progress, gym performance as well and a general assessment based on what they’re looking like.  Sometimes I’ll put one in, only to pull it back out because maybe my application of it wasn’t timed right.
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My Thoughts

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As most of you know, I like to wait until the dust settles in terms of research before I make a definite conclusions about whether something works or doesn’t work.  However, I am not against trying things in the interm provided that the theory is sound and there is practical evidence suggesting that it works in the applied setting.

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In this case, it appears that if you’re going to try refeeds, you at least need to have hit a standstill in terms of weight loss that can’t be explained by overconsumption of calories or too little activity and likely be relatively lean.  If you’re just starting to follow a nutrition plan and you’re trying to justify using refeeds as a way to over eat on the weekend because you need to maintain your leptin levels you’re probably deluding yourself.  A more moderate calorie deficit is probably the key to success and if you’re going to use refeeds, you should probably wait until they are truly warranted.

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I should also note here, that while we are talking about the effects of leptin on hunger and metabolism, we shouldn’t forget that other hormones like ghrelin and PYY have effects on hunger as well and none of these hormones operate in isolation.  In fact, some of them are actually effected just be THINKING that something is more filling.  So we can’t ignore the possibility that other hormones as well as social and psychological factors can play a role in fat loss.  While refeeds may indeed work, there is still so much more we can learn.

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In my post last week I talked a little bit about how weight gain (and specifically staying at a certain weight) can increase the amount of a hormone called leptin required to prevent hunger and slowing down of the metabolism with subsequent weight loss.

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To reiterate, leptin is a hormone that historically would have protected us from starving to death in periods of famine.  When our body fat levels fall, leptin also falls which slows our metabolism and makes us hungry so losing more weight will be harder and we’ll possibly eat more to bring our weight back up to where it was previously.  In the context of the discussion from last week, gaining weight and maintaining it for some time would make it so we need more leptin (i.e., need to gain more weight or eat more) to restore leptin levels to normal and make us stop being so hungry.

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However, one proposed mechanism to deal with falling leptin levels when calories are restricted is the use of “refeed days”.  In most cases, it is suggested that the refeed consist largely of carbohydrates and that it is actually a full day of refeeding instead of the popular cheat meal that was originally quite common with bodybuilders.

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 The premise here is that insulin increases leptin and carbohydrates increase insulin so logically a high calorie day including plenty of carbs would increase leptin and offset the metabolic slowdown associated with low leptin and low body fat levels.  And since a single meal doesn’t necessarily have this effect, a whole day is typically suggested.

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I think this practice has actually grown increasingly popular with dieters, but the point I want to drive home is that while this is the logical extension of the current research looking at the hormones involved, I’m not sure that there have been any more lengthy studies looking at whether this method actually produces changes in metabolism or, more importantly, allows people to go on to lose more weight/fat than they otherwise would have lost.

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Does this mean that refeeds don’t work?

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Not necessarily.  What it means is that there is just not any research yet (that I am aware of) examining whether this is method is actually effective for staving off metabolic slow down.  There IS research suggesting that leptin injections can help with weight maintenance in those who have already lost weight.  However, the reseach on leptin injections also shows that they NOT effective in promoting weight loss at all (except in those born with a leptin deficiency).

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So where does this leave us?

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Generally speaking, I think that as long as you’re in negative calorie balance (calories in are less than calories out) you’re going to lose weight.  This can be accomplished with an even calorie deficit throughout the whole week or a more severe calorie deficit during the week so you can have a “refeed” on the weekend amounting to the same total calorie deficit.  I also think that the leaner you get, the harder it is going to be to lose more weight/fat regardless of whether or not you do refeeds.

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I think refeeds or cheats CAN be good psychologically for some people, whereas they can lead to all out binges and unhealthy eating patterns on others.  The secret is just to acknowledge which of these types you are.  For now though, I think the research on refeeds is still incomplete and more definitely needs to be done before we can confidently tell people that they are maintaining their metabolic rate (and will thereby lose more weight) by using them.

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If they work for you by enabling you to stick to your plan then that is all that really matters.  However, I’m not sure (based on available research) that their effects on leptin are the cause.  If you have research to the contrary, I’d be happy to be wrong here…so send it my way.

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What are your thoughts on refeeds?  Do you use them?  Do you feel they are effective?  Or is it all about calories?  Drop me a comment below.

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Every so often we tend to let our weight get a little beyond where we might like due to work stress, having kids, etc and we rationalize that we’ll just have to “take it off later”.  However, recent research on leptin shows that perhaps this doesn’t work exactly as we might expect.

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You see, leptin is a very interesting hormone that was evolutionarily responsible for protecting our body from starvation.  At our normal weight (i.e., when we are not calorie restricted) leptin levels remain stable and our metabolism plugs along just fine.  However, as we lose weight our leptin levels fall which can slow down our metabolism and make us want to eat more to restore us to our original weight and bring leptin back up to its original levels.  This is normal and anyone who had tried to lose weight in the past will know exactly what I’m talking about.

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But here’s the kicker, when we gain extra weight and carry it around for a while our leptin threshold (the point leptin levels have to reach to keep us weight stable) becomes higher.  In other words, we’ll have to eat more to restore leptin to that higher level and this predisposes us to go right back to that weight.  So basically, once we gain weight and carry it around for a while, it will actually get harder to maintain any future weight loss.  Shit!

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And to make the problem worse, the new leptin threshold (you know…the one we created by allowing ourselves to carry around the extra weight that we were going to take off later) does not appear to go down even if we take off the weight and maintain that new body weight for a long time.  Instead, the higher leptin threshold appears to be permanent and once it is changed there doesn’t appear to be much we can do about it.  Double shit!

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So what can you do about it?

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 If you’ve gained some weight and you’re not where you’d like to be then you need to immediately implement a plan consisting of several well thought out action steps that will carry you to your goal before your body adapts to your current weight.

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Alternatively, if you’ve been at your current weight for a while and you think your body may already have adapted, what you can do is start by taking action today to prevent future weight gain.

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Of course, if you need that extra litte bit of incentive to finally take action I should remind you that today is the last day to Tom Venuto’s Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle product before the end of day and you’ll have the opportunity to get lean, and defeat leptin, and win an all inclusive trip to Maui all at the same time.

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Whether or not you decide to use Tom’s product is up to you, but frankly, the incentive to go to Maui is pretty convincing to me.  But the very least you need to do is start taking some action today (no matter how small) to start moving in the right direction.

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What good is a Monday morning without zombies right?

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Last Friday the group Sumo Cyco released a totally SICK music video.  The group features Sever (the alter ego of musician Skye Sweetnam), but more importantly I’m totally stoked because my brother in law Brad got to play the blood sucking, brain eating, zombie in the video and his girlfriend Sara did all of the supremely gory makeup…which makes the video totally awesome.  If you missed your coffee this morning, this video will definitely wake you up.  I’m really digging the tune and thinking this one might be a solid addition to the playlist for leg day this week too! 

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*Warning – Video may not (read: is definitely not) suitable for work*

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Okay…now to get down to business.

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Recently I had two people ask me questions regarding things they should be eating to lose fat faster.  The first was a male friend who mentioned that someone had told him he should start eating coconut oil to accelerate his metabolism.  The second was a female friend who had heard from some of her friends that if you eat a certain amount of cinnamon per day (mixed in yogurt of some kinda) that this would help her to lose fat faster.  In fact, some of her friends stated that they were doing this and that it was actually working.

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So what do I think?

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The very real truth is that there ARE some compounds that have a thermogenic effect and result in a (slightly)  increased metabolic rate.  However, the second someone asks what they should be eating to make weight/fat loss go faster I tend to think they’ve been terribly misguided.  In my experience, weight loss isn’t about consuming MORE of anything.  In fact, for most people the real magic is created simply by consuming less.

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In short, I tend to answer questions like this with questions of my own.  In these cases I simply asked “Do you think that if you maintained your current level of activity and calorie intake that adding this ingredient would make a visual difference in how you look”?

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I don’t know whether either person actually took that to mean what it was meant to mean, but the key here is to understand that IF there was a magic ingredient that made for a truly visually noticible change in appearance without any change in diet or exercise it would probably be VERY expensive and you wouldn’t be able to buy it in the store for $10 or less.

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But what about the people who were doing the cinnamon thing and getting results?

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Again…if the scale was changing I’m guessing that this would be more related to subconscious changes in intake or exercise as a result of the act of monitoring weight in the first place.  And, of course, there is the placebo effect that I mentioned here as well.  But most certainly, the main point you should take from this is that there is NO MAGIC.  There are NO SECRETS.  Real and permanent weight loss will always be the result of serious dietary or activity changes (usually both).

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PS: If you haven’t already, don’t forget to find me on Facebook and Twitter.

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PPS: Seats are going quickly for my speaking engagement in June.  If you don’t want to miss it click HERE to find out more.

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